1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to tape handling apparatus and particularly pertains to a new and improved video cassette rewind apparatus that enables the selective cleaning and erasing of tape utilized by conventional video cassette recorder devices.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The use of tape rewinding and processing apparatus including the editing and cleaning of various tape is known in the prior art, but normally these various events must be dealt with individually substantially increasing the time and attention required to perform the various operations. Furthermore, when moving tape from one device to another and due to the idiosyncrasies of each device, positioning of a tape is somewhat changed from one device to the next thereby resulting in varying points of stoppage and start along a tape with the attendant results of not uniformly processing such tape. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,021,989 to Sellers sets forth a driving capstan arrangement for driving a quantity of tape within the device. The patent is primarily concerned with the mechanical relationship of the capstan to a driving mechanism for proper handling of tape within the device. The Sellers patent is set forth merely to illustrate that the prior art has well provided for the teaching of driving tape past a processing station, such as a recording head, where the instant invention has refined the processing of a particular, namely the use of video cassette tape.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,054,344 to Fujimoto, et al., is an example of a storage receptacle for magnetic tape, where U.S. Pat. No. 4,566,653 to Bettinger, et al., sets forth a modified tape cassette structure wherein the two patents are illustrative of various tape housing devices.
Similarly, U.S. Design Pat. No. 270,833 to Spicer, U.S. Design Pat. No. 265,524 to Basili, et al., and U.S. Design Pat. No. 188,474 to Spadaro set forth examples of various tape securement and housing devices.
The prior art has failed, however, to provide a modular construction for processing video cassette tape, as set forth by the instant invention, wherein the same provides means for both the editing and cleaning of such tape and thusly preparing such tape for subsequent use and in this respect, the present invention substantially fulfills this need.